Hand odds Issue 6

So you want to know what are your chances of winning a particular hand or whether or not to call a cetain situation. Well the pros and most of the shows on TV nowdays talk about odds and favorites to win a hand. First thing lets discuss "outs". Outs are just the number of cards in the deck that can fall, that you think, will give you the best hand to win. So lets say you have Jh10h in your hand and 8s9c2d come on the flop. You have what is considered to be an open ended straight draw, meaning that you can catch the high card or the low card to make your straight. So lets figure out the outs. You would need an Q or an 7 to make a straight and since there are four of each of these in a deck of cards you have 8 outs. Now if you had four to a flush then you also have to account for and of that suit coming out and you outs go up from there.

Next lets talk about calculating your odds. On any given day there are 52 cards in the deck. Two are in your hand so 52-2=50, and three are now face up after the flop so 50-3=47. There are 47 unknown cards now in the deck. So lets use the example hand above. There are 8 of those 47 unknown cards that will make your hand so 47-8=39. So there are actually 39 cards that cant help you and 8 that can. So to determne your outs you taking the number of cards that hurt you and divide it by the number that can help you so 39/8=4.9 almost 5 to 1 . You can also utilize the rule of 4 and 2 rule, its simple. To figure your percentage of winning by the river. If your between 1 and 8 outs, take your outs and multiply by 4. So as before 8x4=32%. If you have 8 or more outs multiply by four then subtract the number of outs above 8. So lets say 10 outs 10x4=40 and 10-8=2 so then 40-2=38%. Also if you want to know the odds of making your hand on the next cards take your outs x2+2 so ,8 outs 8x2=16+2=18%

Now you can correctly determine what odds you have and how big an underdog you might be. This is big in determining whether or not to call or to fold. The next thing you need to learn is "pot odds"